Summers final discussion

What a time, what things have i seen, people i have met and things i have come to realize about the world and about my self. The one thing i know for sure is that this has been on of the most memorable summer vacations i have yet lived through. Not too much more can be said about it otherwise. I have traversed this lonesome continent and traveled some beautiful country. I have surfed more locations than ever before and have conquered waves that have well exceeded any i had previously ridden, nothing seems heavy now, nothing too daunting. Lord knows i have plenty more to learn, but thats why I am going back to school tomorrow. Its a bit wondrous actually, i know i have escaped the grasps and restrictions of high school, yet i still dream that i am back in the old halls again being graced by the likeness of my good friends and apparitions of acquaintances i never really got to know. The only thing i think i may miss, at least for a little wile, will be the familiarity i grew accustomed to with being able to see the people i cared about (as well as those who i couldnt say the same for) on a daily basis. Thank goodness i am still in town, i will be within reach and i am still within fimilliar teritory. But the notion that gives me the most condolence and which steadies my hand through this changing of the times is that if i am lucky, tomorrow will still come out to be a different day to be experienced, and the seasons will come to a passing and the wind will still blow to bring waves to the shore(although i will now have considerably less time to ride them now). But in the final hours of summer i can still listen to my Bob Dylan records and know that tomorrow the music will remain, the same as it ever was.

Surfing Solo

It came about as a last minute split second idea, the kind you make on a dull Sunday afternoon when all you have done all day is sit indoors watching baseball and the sun is burning bright in a cloudless sky. I needed to get back to the sea. I have been surfing religiously for the the past three days chasing the first legit South Swell in weeks ravenously from Huntington Pier down to Laguna and San Clemente. I had surfed a spot Saturday early afternoon which my friends and I sarcastically refer to as Tits, AKA Super-tubes, because on the right conditions this place can dish out spitting tube after flaring tube and is as the name implies "Absolutely Tits". Its was superb on this day, a little crossed up and deceptive at times but on the right wave you could be looking up at a 6 ft pitching lip or standing tall inside of a churning shack staring wild-eyed at the best view of your life. I had this vision pulling into my second wave of the day, standing and pulling into a solid left i attained tremendous speed on the rising wall as i pumped my board through the section, i then turned off the top of the wave and dropped in to the end Bowl. Pulling into this final section, only feet from the shore and in no more that 3 ft of water i experienced the sensation of being fully enveloped by moving water and in that fraction of a second i gazed up at the roof of the barrel and out the exit hole to see the shoreline extending all the way to San Clemente. It was without a doubt one of the most spectacular views i have ever captured in my minds eye, i didn't even mind the thrashing i was dealt at the mercy of the pounding beach break, all i felt was the pure joy of self accomplishment and the satisfaction of having forgotten every other emotion or thought, leaving nothing but the notion of the unadulterated inner peace.
-But i Digress.....
It is now Sunday, and the swell is steadily pushing 7 ft at times and i have decided to paddle out at Huntington state beach solo. It didn't seem like a daunting test of my courage at the time, but then again i hadn't even seen a wave break yet. I park, walk to the nearest high wall and check the surf, it takes a few moments for me to catch a glimpse of a proper 6 ft set of walls peal along the outer shelf. I have seen enough and proceed to rush back to my car to suit up.
Few people understand the mentality of an amped surfer. It is one of pent up excitement, rushing adrenaline, uncontrolible urges to rush headlong into what most people consider a hostile environment and an undying surge of curiosity all mixed into a coktail of emotions so volitile that if an average non-watergoing human were to consume they would most sertainly blackout from a compleat sensory overload(upon waking up they would have to be emidiatly emitted into the nearest mental institution, or emidiatly handed a surfboard themselves). Standing on the shore strapping my leash to my ankle i noticed the ocean had created a channeling rip current for me, making my paddle out 30% easier than normal, i was still accosted by the usual inside crashers that get your hair wet and do a great job of making you feel like there is a bomb set coming on the outside waiting to crush all your hopes and dreams into oblivion. This however did not happen and i positioned myself farther out than the impact zone so as to not get cought inside.
-I have a morbid fear of being caught inside ever since i surfed Trail 5 during the swell of the decade on July 24 of 2009. You think going to school with a bunch of popularity crazed loonies who talk behind your back is a scary notion? Try staring up the face of a 15 ft wall of ocean about to break ten feet infront of your face and not being able to do a thing about it other than abandon ship, take a deep breath and dive for the bottom only to be lifted and dragged for what seems like days under water. But i digress.....
The waves were far from ideal in shape, i was paddling into moving mountain ranges with at least 5 different peaks and cross waves and not to mention nowhere to go once the wave was caught, nowhere but straight down as i found out on my first wave. I looked to set my line going left only to see that the peak was well ahead of me, so i resorted to try to go straight but the nose of my board instantly dove, throwing me ass over tea-cup into the churning mass of the classic Huntington washing machine. Impossible i thought to myself, "there is no way to get into these waves" i said outloud in frustration. I had no time to grummble for i was dead if i stayed in the Impact Zone. The next "makible" wave that came my way was a bit smaller and looked forgiving, so i precieded to tear ass across the face on my 6" 10' Brian Bulkly and kick out as it sectioned. I was then faced with the largest and ugliest set it has ever been my displeasure to lay eyes on at huntington. Demented, disgusting mountain formations of ocean were marching right at me! I paddled frantically to punch through the first one only to see the second wave about ready to crash right on me. "Oh hell no, not while I still breath", i gasped. In moments like this panic is very near to the heart of the surfer, yet he must not let it take hold for if it does he looses all common sense (which in my case is not a big deal because i have been told that i have very little common sense to lose anyway). Neadless to say the wave crashed well ahead of me and i was forced to execute a duck dive while holding on to my board for dear life. Thankfully my board and i punched through in one piece. After my shair of heavy situations i have come to find a way to deal with being shaken up and rattled, it often requires several sets of heavy breathing followed by a little mental pep talk which for me this time went something like, " Your OK. You are ALRIGHT. Pay no attention to the fact that you are utterly alone and there are no surfers out for at least 300 yards in either direction. Focus and pull it together, man!!!!!" Even in my mind i am not the best motivator, but it worked for me because a few more waves came my way, all disfigured and nasty, but i did not lose my cool. Then IT came. The wave was a churning wall at least 6 if not 7 ft tall with a fair amount of chop on and around it, but a small slot of face that looked like a manageable bowl, damn the rest of the gnarly face, so i began to chase this thing down. This was the Big Pappy that i knew was my only chance to salvage the session, so i paddled hard, felt the wave begin to take me and then a split second later the grim realization hit me that there was absolutely no save avenue for me to take in either direction. The right was out of the question and the left had a boil in the face that was already pitching the wave out, i had no choice but to go straight. I felt as though the drop down the face lasted more than a few seconds as the mass of ocean water built up and doubles up under me. It became vertical and i knew there was no way out of it at this point, i was either going to hold fast for dear life or become minssed-meat at the hands of this brute. NOT AN OPTION!!! I managed to iron-leg this puppy out and belly on my board to allow the white wash to push me to shore.
I tell you now i have never been more determined to make a drop nor have i been more relieved to have survived the impossible. When i came ashore i looked at my hands half in disbelief to realize i had made it out of that heavy of a situation, not to mention the stunned looks on the faces of the Asian family that was playing at the waters edge. That's how i knew it was heavy, because the looks they were giving me were ones of utter amazement. I proceeded to walk down the beach, half wanting to paddle back out in a more advantageous spot, but decided against it because the sun was already touching the horizon.
As i gazed out at the waves just as i began to walk off the beach i was overcome with what i would discribe as a self-consious realisation of my own existance in which i had to sit down in the sand and try to keep from breaking into tears in the flood of emotions i felt. In that moment all else in my mind dissapeared, reality became paramount in the sense that i felt simultaniousl the massive release of addrenaline that must have taken hold somewhere in the middle of my drop and the purity of essence that comes from the heart when you have overcome a seamingly insurmountible obsticle. I can tell you nothing can ever come close to that feeling i felt at the edge of the ocean this afternoon, maybe the feeling of the hearts realization of its counterpart in another, but whats true love got to do with it anyway? Love for me comes in the ocean when she presents me with the chance to test myself against her might and when her beauty shines in the light of the setting sun. I believe that it is not stupidity or machismo which draws surfers to the waves, but an undying love for the feeling attained by realizing the purity of ones existence in the simple act of riding a wave.
-Nothing could ever stop me from finding my peace of mind in the sea.

Thoughts apon returning to California

Maybe ill blame it on my partial drunkenness, or on the jet lag catching up with me, but my mind is twisting and turning and spinning circles around my ass right now. I should be happy because my cousins are in town and iv had planned many great activities to be partaken, yet i feel a strange sense of familiar entrapment within myself, like the feeling you get when you build up a notion in your head that at that time seems perfectly feasible, only to have it crumble from the top down like some awkwardly similar image of the twin towers on September 11( God save all those souls that died this day which will live in infamy, for i do not take your memories in vain). With out a doubt i am disillusioned beyond any self recognition, and yet it does not surprise me because i have no one but myself to blame for this state of pent up indecisive rage within me.
-Bury me at sea should i pass from this earth, let my body serve as feed for the creatures of the deep, so i may live in eternal peace with my one and only true love, The Sea, whose vast expanse and power have tough me the true meaning of myself more than any living being, and whose moods and expressions i can see more clearly than the irises of any human eye.




-In truth i am glad to be back in my home state. The humidity plays a Menes with the mind and serves only to question one's understanding of the ways of nature. Although the thunderstorms were really something else, in no other form does nature display her might more threateningly yet so beautiful as in the midst of a thunderstorm. Heavy rain, strong wind, and a sudden white flash of light that cast ghostly shadows on the objects in the near ground, to deliver seconds later the defining clap of thunder that eclipses all the most powerfully destructive sounds that mankind can produce. I could not help but to feel small and utterly insignificant in its midst. And yet, I have never felt more at one with the natural world than in the midst of that very storm. Could it be that perhaps i may be partially insane to think this, if this be so then i consider myself the lucky because i have no other way of thinking about things. It surely beats cowering in fear and shivering to the bone like a poor hound who gets nervous and goes insane with the very sound of falling rain on the roof of a house.

Let me be your Box of Rain

As written by Phil Lesh and the Grateful Dead

Look out of any window
any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
birds are winging or
rain is falling from a heavy sky -
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
this is all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago
Walk out of any doorway
feel your way, feel your way
like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction
around some corner
where it's been waiting to meet you -
What do you want me to do,
to watch for you while you're sleeping?
Well please don't be surprised
when you find me dreaming too

Look into any eyes
you find by you, you can see
clear through to another day
I know it's been seen before
through other eyes on other days
while going home --
What do you want me to do,
to do for you to see you through?
It's all a dream we dreamed
one afternoon long ago

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams
to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken 
and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through
A box of rain will ease the pain 
and love will see you through

Just a box of rain -
wind and water -
Believe it if you need it,
if you don't just pass it on
Sun and shower -
Wind and rain -
in and out the window
like a moth before a flame

It's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
or leave it if you dare
But it's just a box of rain
or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long long time to be gone 
and a short time to be there 

The Moth that dashes into the flame has only itself to blame.

"The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow."

Call me a moth if you will. A lone fluttering insect dwelling in the heart of darkness. My life curses me to an existence of perpetual nothingness in the swamps and forests of this dreadful continent, living in fear of nightingales and owls who also share in my exploitation of the night and its vast twilight, that which some see as difficult or even a frightening notion to grasp is an all too real and routine habitat for me, the moth. In this, my anamorphic state of being, i have just come to grips with the sense that i am destine to do this dismal and dreary dance of life until my life has reached the end of its design. But hark, a wondrous dance of light reaches from the depths of the precipice of night, a small flickering candle is burning in the near ground. I, the moth, feel a strange sensation. It overwhelms my body and consumes my mind, its as if this singular light, unable to even penetrate the inky blackness more than 3 ft from its source, is calling out to me."Come share my light, come out of your darkness, come to me to share my light, come and share in the wonder of Love". I am now fluttering in your vicinity, gentile and wondrous flame. Your soft white light and your slender flame and your purist of energies draws me into yourself unlike all other effects i have yet experienced in nature. But alas, my own groaning pain and my longing for the flames adoration have spelled my doom. I fluttered to close to you, the flame of my soul, and i was consumed in an instant, and i now live in a state of oneness and bliss with you because you have freed me from the darkness that was all i had known.
-It is my own Fatal Flaw that i am hopelessly in search of a light of love in my life and that when it is finally realised and within my reach, i allow it to vaporise me in one instant, so in a sense i feel only the joy of the flam's love at the end of my short moth existence.
As for having only myself to blame, I doubt i would even put it on myself because i couldn't see my self living any other way. I am just as imperfect as any other, even YOU.

Words of comfort

PASS HERE AND GO ON... YOUR ON THE ROAD TO HEAVEN.

Impared Ignorance

Its a wonder to wake up the morning after a belligerent bout and have a hazy recollection of the evenings past events. Its enough to make you wonder how much of a fool you were for the decisions you made and it again makes you realise that whatever your impaired judgement made you do is completely irrelevant to your current situation. This realization came upon me as i was laying flat on my stomach in a bed of tangled sheets in a room flooded by blinding sunlight and echoing with the throbbing noise of my pool filter. It took me a moment to fully become aware of my surroundings (this is the sign that the night past was a raging blast) as i also had no concept of time in this strange location. Gathering my wits about me, my reality began to slowly materialize, and i came to notice it was 9:17, a time that bore about as much significance to me as a grain of sand on the course pebble like sand common to Balboa Island, so i continued to sleep. Following my harsh wake up (the crashing sound of my door against the 20 lb weight which acts as my door stop) i arose form my tattered bed sheets and spring coiled mattress, meandered to the bathroom where i encountered a scruffy looking, scraggly image in the mirror. It took me a matter of seconds to come to grips with the fact that this disillusioned and outrageously out of proportion caricature was in fact my very likeness looking deep through my eyes like an African villager looks deep into the presuppose of a well shaft. As much of a mess as i may seem to be in, its a wonder that people don't think of me as a kid that's just an over the hill and down the road lunatic but i can the my blog follower(s) this, I am still ALIVE.